


Love Letters

by Enchantress0223, It-is-the-Hannah (carry_on_my_wayward_outcasts)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Artistic Liberties, CAP_RBB_2017, Canon Compliant, Codependency, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 05:41:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11269089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enchantress0223/pseuds/Enchantress0223, https://archiveofourown.org/users/carry_on_my_wayward_outcasts/pseuds/It-is-the-Hannah
Summary: Sometimes, there are things that are too difficult to say out loud.Sometimes, there are things that are too difficult to say at all.Sometimes, we find ways to say them anyway.





	1. PART I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Each song is linked throughout the fic as they come up, but the full playlists can be found:  
> On youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw  
> On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/bordeaucl/playlist/0KiRarAupk0jw5m2p1myFr  
> On Dropbox:https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8uceq8y1hv2l97l/AAAqEizitpG-nRVqSF6nCRfYa?dl=0  
> Have fun!

**Prologue**

Bucky stared down at the leather notebook in his hand, and the CD player and earbuds still sitting in the box next to him on the bed. He didn’t really know what he was expected to do with any of it. It hadn’t yet been a full week since he’d come off cryo in Wakanda, and he was only just coming to terms with how to be his own person again without the constant threat of imprisonment or brainwashing or torture. Steve had been with him the whole week, of course, smiling at him with those sad eyes right from the moment he first woke up and explaining patiently that yes, the words were out of his head, and yes, the Avengers had all been pardoned, and yes, Bucky had been too. Steve had been there when Bucky started really remembering things, and when the Wakandan doctors had told him he’d probably end up remembering everything. Steve had sat with him while he had cried about that. 

For nearly a whole week, Steve had been by his side again, and then, because all good things must come to an end, Steve had been called away on some urgent Avengers matter, leaving only this cardboard box and the promise to come back as soon as possible so that they could go home together to the states. Steve hadn’t explained what would be in the box when he gave it to Bucky that morning, instead handing it to him with the request that it not be opened until Bucky was alone, and that Bucky call if he had any problems at all with what was inside. 

Bucky didn’t really have any problems with what was inside the box, he was just confused by it. A notebook, a CD player, and a pair of headphones. It gave him a bad feeling, but he wasn’t sure if it was the items themselves or the fact that he didn’t know what they contained. In his experience, mysterious notebooks had never held anything good, but seeing as this came from Steve, he just didn’t know what to think. He stared down at the book for a while, wondering what exactly what Steve meant by it, until finally it occurred to him that the easiest way to find out was probably just by opening the book to see what was inside. 

When he did, he found a faintly tearstained page inked in Steve’s unmistakably neat artist’s handwriting. He flipped through the pages of the notebook, not really absorbing the words, but finding more of the same at varying levels of legibility. Finally, he returned to the first page, and began to read. 

 

_ Dear Bucky,  _

_ It’s been three years since you went on ice in Wakanda.  _

_ Things are- well, they’re a lot different now. A lot has happened. I made up with Tony, we redrafted the accords, I remembered how to feel like a person again, I forgot what it was like to have you with me again.  _

_ I was starting to be okay with that last one. _

_ And then T’challa called, maybe three days ago now? Wait, no, I texted Sam. He says it was two days. I haven’t really slept.  _

_ So T’challa called two days ago, and being me, I immediately thought he was going to say that something had gone wrong and I’d lost you again. I braced myself for the worst, and then instead, he said they had found you a cure. That you’d be waking up, and the words would be out of your head, and could I please come to Wakanda as soon as possible.  _

_ Only trouble is, as soon as possible is about a week from now. The Avengers are in the middle of some relief work right now, and as much as I want to just come get you, it wouldn’t be right to leave everyone hanging.  _

_ Also, Tony would be pissed.  _

_ You’re pretty much the only thing I’ve been able to focus on since I got the call, though. I haven’t been able to think about anything else. Haven’t really been able to talk about anything else, either, ‘cause I’ve been so worked up over what I’m going to say when I see you and how I’m going to explain everything that’s happened that I’ve been thinking out loud to anyone who’s around. It’s starting to drive everyone a little nuts, which I actually didn’t even realize until Sam pulled me aside after dinner because “someone needed to curb the crazy” before Nat knocked me out.  _

_ He suggested that I should just write down everything I want to say to you and let you read it, because I’m apparently “shit at talking about feelings anyway”. I told him that I wouldn’t even know where to start, and that’s how the playlist came up. _

_ See, about a year ago, the team started doing this whole group therapy thing to try and work some of our crap out. I’ll get to more about that later, but right now all you need to know is one of the assignments they gave us was to help each other make a playlist about our lives and then share them. I think the idea was music shows a lot of emotion that we can’t, or something like that, and talking about the songs and why we picked them would be a good jumping off point for talking about the harder stuff behind them. It worked pretty well at the time, got us talking about our lives and all, so Sam figured it would work as a jumping off point for this, too. _

_ I’m hoping he’s right. I guess we’ll find out.  _

_ Who knows, maybe by the time we get to Wakanda I’ll actually be able to say what I want to say out loud and you won’t even see this. (I don’t know who I’m trying to fool with that. Of course I’m not going to be able to say it out loud. When have I ever?) _

_ If (when) you’re reading this, just know that I’m really sorry I couldn’t just say it to your face. I want to,  _ ~~_ I just- _ ~~ _ I don’t know if I can get through some of it.  _

_ I’m pretty sure you know what I mean. If you don’t, well, I guess you’ll find out. Sorry about that too.  _

_ I don’t really know how I’m going to give this to you, (haven’t come close to planning that far ahead yet), and I sure as hell don’t know if you’re going to be able to read this in one sitting, but I think you’re going to want to read the whole thing before you talk to me. Listen to the playlist along with it, it should help. I’m hoping it helps.  _

_ I’m hoping this will be at least some sort of explanation for my part in everything- why I did what I did, why I didn’t help you sooner, why I acted so rashly all the time.  _

_ It’s probably not going to be the explanation- the apology- you deserve, but I want you to have my side of the story. We always used to say that even when we had nothing, we had each other, and even though we don’t have nothing anymore (God, Bucky, we have so much going for us now), I still wanted you to have me.  _

_ Alright, I think I’ve rambled on long enough. I should really rewrite this, make it less messy, but if I don’t get everything on paper all at once I’m never going to finish. I’ll lose my nerve.  _

_ I’ll see you on the other side, I guess.  _

~~_ With  _ ~~

~~_ I’ll  _ ~~

~~_ Your friend  _ __ ~~

_ -Steve _

Bucky stared at the leather notebook in his hand, and the CD player next to him on the bed, and thought to himself, quite eloquently, 

“What the fuck, Steve.”

He considered getting up, unlocking the door, and stealing a plane to chase Steve down and get an answer as to what could possibly be written in this little notebook that he couldn’t say out loud, and what exactly Steve meant by an explanation. By an  _ apology.  _ He considered, not for the first time that week, what would happen if he went to one of the scientists and told them that he wasn’t really ready to deal with all these emotions again and could they please put him back under for a while?

He considered ripping up the book and smashing the CD and telling Steve that nothing he could possibly say was going to make any of this better, but that it didn’t matter as long as Steve was just there. 

Bucky did none of those things. 

Instead, he remained sitting on the bed, and he reread the letter. 

And then he got up and checked that the door was, in fact, locked from the inside and not the outside. And then he sat back down, and read the page a third time. 

He again thought to himself,

“What the fuck, Steve.” 

And then he put the headphones in, hit play on the CD, and turned the page. 

 

 

**PART I**

[Track 1- Rescue Song- Mr. Little Jeans](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84y1TJ0CMiQ&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw&index=1)

_ When I made this playlist, it took me a little while to figure out where I should start, because I’ve had so many different beginnings in my life. Waking up in the 21st century, when I became Captain America, my actual childhood, et cetera. I wasn’t quite sure where “my story” really began, because honestly, it depends on what biography you read.  _

 

He has a point there- when Bucky was first coming back to himself after the fall of SHIELD, he had tried to do some research on the half-remembered man he had pulled from the river. Approximately 6 different biographies later, he was probably more confused than to begin with, especially since none of them seemed to line up with his own hazy memories. 

 

_ After about an hour of agonizing over it though, I realized something: my story, my real story, starts and ends with you. You were my first friend, my partner in crime for our entire childhoods, and throughout the war. You were the first person who saved me, and the first person who I wanted to save for a reason other than a general “I don’t like bullies.” _

_ This playlist is the story of my life, and because of that, most of it is also the story of us.  _

_ This first song is about the first day we met.  _

_ The lyrics aren’t exact, (fellas in the 21st century might wear dresses, but if I had tried that back then I would of gotten beat up a hell of a lot more than I did anyway), I think the tone of our first meeting comes across anyhow.  _

_ It was about a week after I’d turned eight. July 1926. I’d gotten a little pocket money from an uncle for my birthday, but was only just getting out to spend it, having been laid up in bed with my usual summer cold since the end of June.  _

_ I was used to getting picked on by the bigger kids by that point. Everyone had figured out I was an easy target, too small and usually too weak to properly fight back, even though I never knew when to quit. Thing is, I usually didn’t have anything to lose other than my dignity, so the stakes had never been that high.  _

_ That day was different. That day, I had money to protect. And so I fought a hell of a lot harder than usual. And, because I was still getting over a cold, it took a hell of a lot more out of me than usual. It wasn’t looking good.  _

_ And then, Buck, then you showed up. You were a year older and a whole lot stronger than I was, and everything in me was gearing up to fight you too, even if I was covered in blood and on the verge of an asthma attack, and then you did something no one else had ever done before.  _

_ You joined my side. _

_ It was the first time I ever fought beside anybody else, and it was great. The other guys got a few licks in, but you were almost as stubborn as I was, and eventually they gave up and went home.  _

_ We picked each other up off the ground, and you let me catch my breath, and then (and I swear, this is an exact quote, because it’s gonna be burned into my memory forever), you said, “You just don’t know when to quit, do you? I guess we’re friends now, because someone's gonna have to look after your ass.” _

 

Bucky had to look away from the page for a moment, because the sudden, sharp memory of saying that to a tiny, bloody version of Steve is almost too much to handle. The poor kid had looked just about ready to start another fight, even all scraped and bruised, and even at eight years old some part of Bucky had known he would protect this little punk with his life. 

He takes a moment to gather his thoughts, and keeps reading. 

 

_ I was a little shell shocked, but I managed to get it together long enough to ask if you wanted to come back to my apartment for lunch. And you did, and my ma took one look at you all grinning and bruised next to me and basically adopted you on the spot, and that was that. We played all afternoon, and by the time ma and I walked you back to your apartment for dinner we had stopped being just Steve and Bucky and became SteveandBucky. _

_ That afternoon sort of set up our whole lives- me, getting into trouble, you, getting me out of it, and us, together, against the world.  _

_ Of course, things got more complicated than just fights over pocket money, but that came later.  _

_ It really was a happy beginning, all things considered. _

 

Bucky couldn’t help but agree. 

 

[Track 2- You, Me, and Steve- Garfunkel and Oates](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YePtnXUzFgg&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw&index=2)

_ After that first meeting, we were inseparable. As we grew up though, the differences between us started becoming more pronounced as you got tall and strong and handsome and I stayed sickly and weak and too dumb to back out of a fight. As we got older, and girls started noticing you and ignoring me, everyone started wondering why you were friends with me at all.  _

_ Except you.  _

_ You, somehow, never seemed to question our friendship. You never saw me as anything less than you were. You never treated me as anything different. _

 

That’s because you weren’t anything different, Bucky thought. You always had my back as much as I had yours. 

 

_ Thing was, you seeing me as someone worth knowing didn’t exactly change anyone else’s opinion. I didn’t mind that so much, I was used to it, but it really got under your skin. You basically took it upon yourself to get me a social life, and as we got older, that meant taking me along on dates. Most of the girls you asked out had a friend who was perfectly happy to go on a double date with her and you, but that had far more to do with you than it ever did with me.  _

_ I don’t think any girl was ever really excited to find out I was the one she had agreed to dance with for the night.  _

 

By some miracle of the universe’s comedic timing, the chorus started just then, and Bucky had to put the book down for a moment because he was laughing so hard. Bucky had lost count in his youth of how many times girls had thanked him wholeheartedly for a fun evening and in the same breath asked why Steve had tagged along. Bucky’s standard answer was that he had asked Steve to come, but more often than not that didn’t seem to clear anything up for the girls. 

It had taken Bucky a few years to figure out why everyone thought it was weird that he wanted Steve along with him all the time, and by that point, girls weren’t really an issue anymore.

It was also around that point when those awkward dates, and any mention of them, started sending him into fits of laughter at his own obliviousness and how Steve just put up with it the whole time. 

 

_ Honestly, I didn’t really mind. At the end of the night, I always ended up going home with you, anyway, so it didn’t really matter if I spent most of those dates sitting against a wall and watching you charm both girls. You’d try to get me involved (you were always trying to get me involved in everything), not realizing that the girls were pretty much uninterested.  _

_ I think the song actually sums it up pretty well. The girls, just into you, you, pretty much oblivious, and me, just along for the ride because it made you happy.  _

_ You have no idea how hard I laughed when I first heard it. It felt like it was written for us. _

 

Bucky smiled. Yeah, he thought. It really does feel that way. 

 

_ Actually, a lot of these songs feel like they were written for us. (I’m not sure how much of that is just because everything reminds me of you). _

 

[Track 3- White Flag- Joseph](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3kXDMPwfMc&index=3&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw)

_ This one, I’m pretty sure, isn’t just because everything reminds me of you. This one’s more about me, and how goddamn stubborn I was.  _

_ Nowadays, everyone thinks it was brave of me to constantly pick fights with bullies when I was a 90-pound weakling, but looking back on it, I think it wasn’t so much bravery as it was pure stubbornness. _

 

Bucky shook his head. No shit, he’d only been telling Steve that since grade school.

 

_ You always used to say I was too dumb not to run away from a fight, but I always knew exactly what I was doing. Every time I went up against some guy twice my size, I knew it was gonna end with me covered in blood and bruises and you giving me a lecture while you cleaned me up. I didn’t have any illusion that I could win a single one of those fights.  _

_ I wasn’t doing it to win. _

_ I picked fights constantly because I knew that if I didn’t stand up for people, no one else was going to. I’d take getting beat up a thousand times over some poor kid getting picked on because I didn’t do anything.  _

_ You were always yelling at me about self preservation of course, but the way I saw it, I didn’t really have a reason to have any self preservation instinct. I got sick pretty much all the time, and even the smallest cold could turn south fast and end up nearly killing me. Nobody really thought I was going to live past thirty, so I figured if I was going to die young I ought to at least die well.  _

_ I know that’s a little morbid, but considering everything else in our lives, I’d say it’s pretty tame.  _

_ And, speaking of everything else, the next song’s where it all began.  _

_ The army. _

 

Bucky let the song finish, and then paused the CD and took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure that he really wanted to read Steve’s account of the army. He barely wanted to think about his own experiences during the war, even the ones before HYDRA, and he didn’t think reading about what Steve was up to in those early days, and especially later on, would do any wonders for his psyche.

Still, his slowly returning memories and his stint in Romania told him that he had always prided himself on knowing everything there was to know about Steve. Even though Steve was the most emotionally constipated and reserved person he knew, he had soaked up every little bit of information he could get every chance he got. 

As much as he knew it was going to hurt, there was no way he was going to pass up a chance to read into Steve’s thoughts directly from the source.

And so he took another moment to collect himself, turned the music back on, and kept reading.

 

[Track 4- Dreaming- Smallpools](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8xni3EcIbc&index=4&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw)

_ We both signed up (the first time) right after we heard about Pearl Harbor. It was a chaotic time, not just for the country, but for us, too. My ma had died less than a year earlier, your sister Rebecca had just gotten married, and we were still trying to weather out the tail end of the Depression together. Honestly, neither of us was really in a position to join the army, but I wanted to fight, and you, as always, were going to follow me anywhere.  _

_ Of course, since I was obviously too small and sickly to ever be considered for the military in ordinary circumstances, they only took you. You went off to basic without me, and I kept trying to enlist with fake papers. That whole time in my life is a little dreamlike, because I was on my own for pretty much the first time in my life, and the only news I ever heard from you was the occasional letter. It seemed like you enjoyed basic, and you were definitely good at it- you got singled out for sniper training pretty early on.  _

_ You came back to Brooklyn one last time before shipping out, and we went to the original Mr. Stark’s science exhibition with a couple of dames.  _

 

Bucky remembered that night. That was a good night. The last good night. 

 

_ That was the last time I saw you before our lives changed forever. I tried to enlist again that night, and ended up getting picked for Erskine’s serum, and you left for Europe the next day. I didn’t get any letters from you while you were in Europe, so I have no idea what the early days of fighting were like for you, and everything from those first couple weeks is blurry and distorted for me, so all I can really tell you that everything felt unreal. Everything changed so fast between you going off to war and me getting the serum and becoming like this that I hardly knew what to make of it all. The whole thing felt an awful like just another exhibit at that science exhibition.  _

 

Bucky had only spent about two months on the front before his regiment got captured by HYRDA, and another month after that he was a science experiment himself, so he definitely got where Steve was coming from. 

 

[Track 5- Star Spangled Man With a Plan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i574Em3IrI&index=5&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw)

_ The other reason everything felt a little dreamlike for a while was because for the first couple months after I got the serum, I was nothing more than a glorified showgirl. This was the period of time when the country (and, to some extent, the world) started getting to know Captain America. Most people thought that this meant they were also getting to know Steve Rogers, but Steve Rogers was the guy who signed up to fight Nazis and punch the actual Hitler, not just a guy with a fake mustache. Captain America was just a symbol, a comic book character, and this was his theme song.  _

 

Bucky remembered this song well. The part of the 107th that had seen it live teased Steve about it constantly, and Bucky had always laughed along with them, because come on, “the star spangled man with a plan” rushed headlong into a Nazi base without any backup. 

 

_ It’s not actually half bad, but I kinda hated it at the time. Sort of represented everything I resented about my new life. Captain America had a part to play, though, and so I toured the country and said my lines and smiled for the cameras like the good old apple pie loving symbol of American patriotism I was.  _

_ Everyone who’s seen footage of those performances says I seem like I loved my job. And, watching them myself, I can kind of see why. (If you want, someone can find a video of it for you online. You’ll probably get a kick out of it). It turns out that without the war, I probably could have had a decent acting career, because looking at that footage, you have no idea what’s going on in my head.  _

 

No one ever knew what was going on in Steve’s head; that was just the kind of person he was. Bucky had always made a sort of game out of trying to guess, though, and now he thought about taking a break to go and get someone to help him find the old newsreels, and guess at what Steve was thinking before finding out for sure. 

He didn’t do that. He’d had enough of guessing. 

 

[Track 6- How- The Neighborhood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpErSvhB2s8&index=6&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw)

_         This is pretty much what was going on in my head. Everything was just moving so fast, I didn't know what to do. I went from a skinny, sickly little punk to a national icon practically overnight, which would be a shock to anyone’s system. Everything was different and confusing and impossible, and I didn't have anyone to help, what with Erskine dead and Peggy off doing things actually related to the war and you-  _

 

-were busy being a prisoner of war and getting experimented on by Nazi scientists. Bucky was unsurprised to see that there were some things Steve couldn’t even write down. He knew all too well that sometimes that shit is easier to try and repress as much as humanly possible. 

 

_         I was still  _ ~~_ pining after _ ~~ _ missing you, and I didn't have a clue where you were or what return address I was supposed to put to even send letters to you. My whole life, you were right there beside me, but when the biggest change of my life (at that point) happened, I didn't know how to adjust without you.  _

_         I'm not blaming you for that, by the way. It wasn't your fault, any more than anything that happened later was. I really mean that.  _

_         I'm also not trying to make it seem like anything I was doing in those early days of being Captain America was actually all that bad compared to what you were going through. I had kind of wanted to leave this section off entirely, because it sounds a little whiny in comparison, but it helps with context for later. When I broke you out of Azzano, on the way back you asked why I hadn't taken the time at the very least get a proper helmet, and at the time, I just sort of laughed it off because I didn't want to say what I was thinking. Those couple of months were the first time I learned what it was like to live without you, and I couldn't handle it. The serum was supposed to make me stronger, the perfect soldier, and I still could hardly survive on my own.  _

 

Bucky had suspected something like that, actually. Steve had always had a little too much of a martyr complex, and with no one to keep it in check- 

 

_ Christ, I just read over this, it sounds depressing as hell, and we aren’t even to the rough parts yet. You probably won’t want to read this.  _

_ I’ll finish it though. It’ll at least help get my crap sorted out before I see you.  _

_ I’m always a mess when I get you back after a while apart. _

 

That makes a pair of us, Bucky thought. They were both always a bit of a mess when they got back to each other, though Steve was the only one who ever cared about holding himself together. He was too proud to let anyone see him break down, too caught up in trying to be the strong one, the leader. It never ended well for Steve, obviously, and this probably wasn’t going to be any different. 

Bucky wouldn’t be surprised if Steve had broken down just writing about parts of this. 

He would be shocked if he himself wasn’t a mess by the end of just reading it.

 

[Track 7- Back to You- Wild](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9bQkMQ0X2A&index=7&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw)

_ This one’s about Azzano. _

 

Okay, maybe he would be a mess sooner rather than later. 

 

_ Although really, this is more about after I had gotten you out and we were on the way back. I sure as hell wasn’t as calm as this song is when I found out your regiment had been captured, and I think we both stopped breathing for a while when the base was self-destructing with us still in it. _

 

“Stopped breathing” is one way to put it. Bucky would probably describe the feeling of trying to get Steve and himself out of that base with something closer to, “literally shitting his pants in terror”, but Steve had never been that crass. 

 

_ This song’s more about the calm after the storm- us walking side by side again, sharing watch, us talking again and catching up on the past months and me desperately trying to explain why I rushed headlong into an enemy base on the off chance you might still be alive. _

 

Bucky remembers being the desperate one during that conversation, actually. It was the first night after they had escaped, and they were both still too hopped up on adrenaline to get any rest, or to think rationally. Bucky had yelled at Steve a little bit, called him an idiot for almost getting himself killed, begged to know why he would put himself in danger like that. Steve had been quiet, had let Bucky get it all out until he was muffling sobs in Steve’s shoulder and muttering that he couldn’t live with himself if Steve had died for him, and Steve had wrapped his arms around him and just said, “I missed you too, punk.”

They didn’t talk about it again. Not until now, apparently. 

 

_ This song kinda says what I couldn’t say then, (and still have trouble with, apparently). I’d follow you anywhere. If there was even the slightest chance of getting you back, of keeping you safe, I’d do  _ _ anything _ _. Bucky, you have no idea how much you mean to me. No idea.  _

_ I couldn’t say it then, but I came after you because there was no other option for me. It was always you. I knew, even then, before I’d been in a real battle, that I would put your life ahead of mine every time, because I  _ _   ~~love~~ _ _  couldn’t stand to lose you.  _

 

Love. He had scratched out the word love, but Bucky couldn’t figure out why, because he distinctly remembers soft words whispered into skin on that night, and a hundred other nights, that meant Steve loved him as much as he loved Steve. 

Unless something had changed while he was with HYDRA. 

 

_ It’s to the end of the line, you and I. I’d follow you anywhere. _

 

Bucky was overthinking things. He had to be, if it was still to the end of the line. 

 

[Track 8- Wherever You Will Go- The Calling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2xeaGFi2q0&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw&index=8)

_ Turns out, you’d follow me anywhere, too.  _

_ After I got you out, I was fully prepared for you to go back home to the states. The military was planning on having all of you go home, discharging you with honors and everything. I expected you to take them up in their offer. You deserved to grow old back in Brooklyn, and as much as I didn't want you to leave me, I cared about you too much to really begrudge you your freedom. When the army asked me to form the Howlies, I psyched myself up to say goodbye to you again, but you went and signed on as my second in command without a second thought.  _

 

There had never been any doubt in his mind that he was going to stay with Steve. There was no other option.

 

_ I was so happy to have you by my side that I didn't even think to question it until the night before we shipped back out. We were in a bar, the guys were celebrating, and you and I were sitting by ourselves. I asked if you were ready to follow Captain America into battle, and you know what you said? _

_         “Captain America? No, I’m following Steve Rogers. That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to back down from a fight.”  _

_          You were following me, not just the comic book guy in the suit. You’re the only person who ever chose me over him, and you did it without hesitation.  _

_           Weirdly, it was then that I really accepted the whole Captain America thing. I figured that if you, the greatest man I knew, thought Steve Rogers was worth following, then maybe I was actually worth something. That I was everything people wanted me to be. _

_ You gave me the confidence I needed to be the leader I was supposed to be. You being willing to follow me is the reason I was able to lead, and was still the reason when I came out of the ice. It all comes back to you.  _

 

[Track 9- Warrior- Ke$ha](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUAMJHExiWg&index=9&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw)

_ I feel like I ought to explain where I found this song before I tell you what it’s here for. It isn’t really something that I’d usually listen to on my own, but I do really enjoy it.  _

_ See, ever since I woke up, the team has been trying to introduce me to everything I missed while I was on ice. I’ve gotten random mini lessons on everything from the Cold War to modern cartoons. You’ll probably get the same treatment, actually. Whatever they tell you, DO NOT EAT THE BANANAS, but you can trust most of the pop culture.  _

 

Bucky had learned about the banana thing on his own, but the warning was still sweet. 

 

_ This song was on a training playlist Natasha made for me pretty early on. To this day, I have no idea if she was trying to make a joke with the random song selection like Tony said or if she actually intended for me to enjoy everything she put on there, but I liked it anyway.  _

 

From what Bucky knew about Natasha, it was probably both. 

 

_ This song in particular was my favorite off that playlist. It kind of reminded me of the fun parts of being with the Howlies, the ones that reminded me why I enlisted in the first place. War sucks, don’t get me wrong. It was cold and miserable and I lost count of our near death experiences after about the tenth, but I can’t honestly say that it was all bad. We were fighting  _ _ for _ _ something, and I was fighting beside my best friend, just like I had all my life. The Howlies became like a little family after a while, and we joked around and talked about just about everything when we weren’t in a firefight.  _

_ As much as they sucked, those couple of months were some of the best I ever had. _

 

Bucky actually agreed with that. 

 

_ This song just reminded me of them because it was angry and happy all at once. It was sort of everything I remembered feeling back then.  _

_ Music is good for feelings like that.  _

 

[ _ Track 10- All These Things That I’ve Done- The Killers _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPa89K_viiM&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw&index=10)

_ Have I said I'm really bad at communicating? Because I am  _ _ really _ _ bad at communicating. _

Bucky had to laugh at that, because anyone who knows Steve knows that he’s bad at communication. 

_ I loved fighting beside you, and laughing beside you, and  _ ~~_ sleeping _ ~~ _ just  _ _ being _ _ with you again, but I didn't know how to tell you that. _

 

What was it with Steve avoiding talking about the fact that they weren’t just friends? It looked like he was going to write “sleeping together” but scribbled it out. It was weird, especially since most of the time sleeping together meant just that- sleeping next to each other. 

 

_ So much changed in such a short time for the both of us, and we spent months in Europe just trying to relearn each other. I couldn't bring myself to say the things I wanted to, that I felt already too old for my age, that I was afraid you didn't feel the same way about me after everything, that all I wanted from you was to help me the way you always had, by staying with me.  _

_ I think you understood all that, even though I couldn't say it, because we always understood each other. We knew what the other was thinking even when they didn't say it. And, over the course of that winter, you showed me that even though so much had changed, everything was still the same with us. Everything would always be the same with us. There’s nothing in this world that could make me stop  _ _ l ~~oving~~ _ _ caring about you.  _

 

There was nothing that could make Bucky stop loving Steve either, but he was seriously going to need an explanation for all the weird phrasing that Steve was using. He was seriously considering just calling him right then and there, but then the song changed.

 

[Track 11- C’est La Mort- The Civil Wars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z50k367WgPs&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw&index=11)

Bucky paused the CD the second he heard the first line, because a sinking feeling in his gut told him what it was going to be about. He took a couple deep breaths, and thought about just skipping this part entirely, but decided that it would probably be okay. He figured he was probably wrong, anyway, so he hit play, and kept reading.

_ I'm so, so sorry about this one. _ _ ~~I'm- I can't even tell you how much I-~~ _

_          I just really need you to know I'm sorry that I let it happen. I should have known better.  _

_          I think you can probably guess what this is about. And if you don't, well, that's probably for the best.  _

_ Where do I even start with this? _

_ That morning? Breakfast with the Howlies, when we were all still joking around? Do I start where everything went to hell? Where I thought about jumping after you? Or should I go back to the night before, to the last time we- _

_ I can’t do this.  _

 

Bucky couldn’t do this, either. His first instinct had been right. This was about the train, and god, even just acknowledging that made Bucky want to puke. Or cry. Or both. 

He didn’t want Steve to start anywhere. Not the last time he saw the Howlies alive, not when he realized he was going to die, not what it had done to Steve, and especially not the night before, because that was the last night he had spent beside Steve, the last time they had kissed, the last time he had felt safe. 

God, he couldn’t read about this. 

 

_ I can't bring myself to write about this, and honestly, you probably shouldn't be reading it, anyway.  _

 

He shouldn’t. He should close the notebook, take out his headphones, stop this before it got any worse. 

Although it probably wasn’t going to get any better if he did that. Once he started thinking about it, he couldn’t stop remembering the wind, the fear, Steve’s shouts, his own scream ripped away from him as he fell-

Fuck. 

He was hyperventilating at this point, had dropped the notebook without noticing, had his hand cupped over his opposite shoulder, where an arm that hadn’t been enough to keep him from falling was no longer there at all. 

He was still coherent enough to realize he needed to get his breathing under control and try to calm himself down, so he started taking deep breaths. Inhale, count to five, exhale. Repeat. 

It took a couple minutes, but eventually he was breathing normally again. He fell backwards onto the bed so he was lying down, staring up at the ceiling. 

He shouldn’t be reading this. 

He lay there for a couple minutes, thinking, before getting up to retrieve the notebook. He stared at the leather binding for a couple more minutes, trying to decide what to do. 

On the one hand, he owed it to himself not to deliberately read things that were going to give him panic attacks. 

On the other, he felt like he owed it to Steve to read what he had written. 

He eventually went on the side of Steve, as always. 

 

_ I feel like I ought to at least explain the song. It's- awfully calm for what happened, and I don't want you to think- I don't know. That it wasn't that big of a deal? Because it was. I can't even tell you how-  _

_    Right. Okay. Sorry. Song.  _

_ I picked this one because of the way I found it. It was the anniversary of- this. Of when I thought you died. For the rest of the world, it had been seventy something years since we were in Europe, so no one remembered what the date meant.  _

_ Well. Except me.  _

_ For me, it had only been a couple months out of the ice, and so everything was still fresh, and I was still numb. I hadn't cried since I got off that train, because there was always another battle to fight, or some new 21st century thing to hear about, or training to do, and no time to stop and properly grieve. I’ll be honest- I didn’t really  _ _ want _ _ to have time to have to think about it, so I kept busy.  _

_ And then, suddenly, it was January again. And I kept trying to ignore it, and not keep track of the date, but I still read the newspaper every morning and, well, it’s a bit hard to avoid seeing what day it is when it’s glaring at you in black news ink.  _

_ I didn’t cry that morning, when I saw the date. I didn’t cry that afternoon, either, when made lunch and the eggs came out as awful as yours always did.  _

_ I held it together all day, going through my routine like I had a hundred times before, still not quite thawed out, right up until I was about to go to bed. And then Natasha happened.  _

_ See, she has this habit of humming to herself when she’s distracted. Sometimes it’s songs I know, sometimes not. I don’t usually bother commenting either way, but this one just sounded so pretty that I asked her what it was. And she played it for me. And I barely got past the opening lyric before I started bawling like a baby in the middle of the common floor of the tower.  _

_ It wasn’t that it was a perfect description of us or anything, but after the year (years?) I’d had, it was close enough. Poor Nat didn’t know what to do, so she called Bruce down, and he just sat with me while I cried it out.  _

_ Later, when we were working on these playlists and I had a hard time thinking of the right song to sum up the greatest feeling of grief and loss I have ever had to deal with, Bruce suggested this one. I decided that it fit perfectly, because this song was what broke the dam that got built the moment I had to climb back into that train car without you.  _

 

 

[Track 12- I Will Follow You Into The Dark- Death Cab For Cutie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDHY1D0tKRA&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw&index=12)

_ There’s a funny thing that happens when all your emotions go numb- you kind of stop caring about yourself. (And I am afraid to think that you know how that feels).  _

 

Oh yeah. He knew that feeling intimately. 

 

_ When I lost you, I lost my reason to keep fighting. I was on autopilot- all I could think of was finishing whatever mission I was on, and not what came after. Peggy, bless her, she tried to pull me out, and there were a few times when I wondered what it would be like to survive the war with her, to take her out dancing, but I never managed to picture myself in a dance hall without you by my side.  _

_ When I was small, I never thought I’d live to see my thirtieth birthday, and I guess I never quite let go of that idea. When I beat Red Skull, and realized where the plane was heading, putting the plane down myself wasn’t my last resort, it was the first thing that came to mind. It seemed natural that I would die like that. I did try to think of something else, because some part of me knew you’d kick my ass in heaven yourself if I had another option and didn’t take it, but in the end, I didn’t mind the thought of putting that plane in the arctic as much as I should have.  _

_ After all, I always said I’d follow you anywhere.  _

 

Bucky paused the CD again before curling up and crying. He had never let himself think about what had happened to Steve after the train. In the early days of HYDRA, when he was still himself, he could only think about how much he missed Steve, especially once they showed him the newspapers declaring Captain America dead and he realized Steve wasn’t going to come save him again. 

He hadn’t really had the time to consider Steve’s feelings after HYDRA, either, because he was too busy trying to remember him at all. It was only when they were on their way to Siberia that he let himself start to think about how deep the sadness in Steve’s eyes seemed to go, but never had he imagined it could have been the reason he crashed that plane. 

Learning that now was enough to make him cry for hours. 

Steve deserved so much better than what he got. They both did. Bucky was only just now letting himself think about it.

And so he stayed like that, curled up and crying, and mourned what could have been. 

 


	2. PART II

**PART II**

[Track 13- Spirits- The Strumbellas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpv-vGScrvU&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw&index=13)

Bucky wasn’t sure how long he cried for, only that it was long enough for him to almost forget what had set him off in the first place.

Almost.

When he finally finished, and had stumbled to the bathroom attached to his room to wipe his eyes and splash some water on his face, he felt like he was ready to face whatever was going to come next in that godforsaken notebook. It took him a few minutes to find his place in the book and pull up the right song, but he got to it eventually.

 

_          Here’s the thing about waking up a war hero after essentially trying to kill yourself: it gets worse before it gets better. _

Bucky groaned. It looked like this was going to get worse before it got better, too.

 

_ After the initial rush of, “oh god I’m alive and I’m in a whole new century”, came the utter desolation of, “oh, god, I’m alive, and I’m in a whole new century.” From the moment I woke up, I had to try to live up to this grand legend of a war hero that I’d been made into over the past seventy years. Even though I knew I wasn’t all they thought I was, I couldn’t bring myself to let anyone down by admitting that, and so I became an actor all over again. _

_ Being a symbol in the 21st century is a lot different than in the 20th. For one thing, there are a lot more cameras in the 21st century. For another, we never had to deal with aliens in the 40’s. _

_ My memories of the fight against the Chitauri are hazy, but there’s footage of it on a thousand different cameras from a thousand different angles. At least twenty different newscasters got in their two cents about what was going on, and most of them at some point mentioned how Captain America was just as amazing as the history books always said he was, even when fighting something no one had ever dreamed of. _

_ When the team and I watched some of those broadcasts back with each other, I couldn’t help but laugh, because Captain America definitely didn’t feel as amazing as the history books said he was. I was a mess for those first couple of months. _

_ Fun fact- if you take a depressed soldier with the beginnings of PTSD who has lost everything he’s ever known and put him into the most stressful battle of his life, nothing good is going to happen to him afterwards. _

_ Of course, in this new century, dealing with my crap was a lot more complicated than putting a plane in the ice with the excuse of saving the world. I had to actually start learning to  _ _ deal _ _ with my crap. _

_ It took me a long, long while, but in the meantime, the 21st century had a hell of a lot to distract myself with. _

 

[Track 14- Hey Ho- Tracy Grammer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-e0_JyPTtY&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw&index=14)

_ I missed a hell of a lot being in the arctic for nearly seventy years, and after the initial insanity of fighting for the planet, I could more or less just relax and catch up on it all for a couple months. Like I said before, the team had a huge part in that. Clint took it upon himself to show me all the movies I had missed that he deemed “classics”, Natasha caught me up on a lot of the world history, Bruce gave me books, Tony talked about the science. Most of what Tony said went over my head, actually, but let me tell you, when he explained vaccines I was so excited I nearly kissed him. _

Considering Steve’s childhood, Bucky wasn’t surprised by that level of excitement. The kind of medicine everyone considers mundane now would have been a goddamn miracle back in their day. If he had been born in this century, Steve might have had a chance at being a normal kid.

 

_ Not everything I learned was good, though. People don’t usually think things through if they think something will get them ahead. _

_ The cost of all this advancement made me sick to my stomach. The things people will do for money or to get ahead are horrifying. _

_ Come to think of it, that’s actually not a bad segway into the next song. _

 

[Track 15- Close Friends- Adema](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V1zoweQeLw&index=15&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw)

_ When Fury nearly bled out in my living room, I had only just finished really settling into D.C, and I had only just started feeling comfortable with the STRIKE team and working officially for SHIELD. When I found out they were all HYDRA? _

_ Yeah. Not great. _

_ Honestly, those couple of days were some of the most stressful of my entire life. _

 

They were probably some of Bucky’s most stressful too, even though he could only remember bits and pieces of them.

 

_ This is also where you, Bucky, show up again. _

_ I mean, not technically until the next song. When I made this playlist, it didn’t seem right to use a song that Tony introduced me to represent you. Things were still- tense- at that point. I did get his endorsement to use it for Rumlow, though. _

_ See, Tony sent me this as a sort of passive-aggressive f-you when we first started working together again, drafting the new accords. It was only a couple months after the Avengers had been pardoned, barely a year since you went under. This song was his way of telling me, “I still don’t forgive you, because you betrayed my trust.” Which I understood. I’ll never forgive Rumlow for pretending to be my friend just to try and kill me, and while I hope (and I think I’m right) that Tony never hated me quite as much as I hated Rumlow, I still understand that feeling of betrayal all too well. _

_ Of course, Tony did eventually forgive me (more or less), whereas I will never, ever, forgive Rumlow for what he did. _

_ Mostly, because of you. _

 

[Track 16- Take My Time/Rifles- Black Rebel Motorcycle Club](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7bB5Tung_E&index=16&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw)

_ I can't even begin to tell you what it was like realizing it was you on that bridge. Essentially, my brain was just full of white noise; I was on autopilot during that fight, and after finding out about what happened to you, and during everything right up until the fight on the helicarriers. I knew I had to fight you long enough to set off the destruction, but after that? I couldn’t do it. _

_ That was one of the scariest moments of my life, not so much because I was afraid to die, but because I was afraid you were going to be the one to kill me. I had already spent a couple years blaming myself for your “death”, and I didn’t want you to have to go through that, even if you couldn’t remember me. _

_ Still, I didn’t have it in me to try and hurt you, even if it meant me dying, and so all I could do was try and talk to you, try and get you to remember me. It was a weird sort of calm, that acceptance that I was going to let you do anything to me. It felt like a victory when I just got through to you for long enough that you didn’t kill me, even if I fell into the river right after. _

_ And then, of course, you jumped in after me and pulled me out. _

 

Bucky still hadn’t quite known what he was doing when he jumped in after Steve. All he knew at the time was that for some reason, if he let this man die, a part of him would die too. It was a weird feeling, instinctively wanting to protect the man he had been ordered to kill, but the one thing Bucky always trusted were his instincts.

Now, he’s impossibly glad he did.

 

[Track 17- Coming For You- Amelia Curran](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KWoCPy4KJA&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw&index=17)

_ I don’t think any part of me really expected you to stick around after pulling me from the river. I don’t think any part of me expected you to pull me out at all. Hoped, yes, but expected? Absolutely not. You might not have been fully under HYDRA’s control anymore, but you clearly weren’t back to yourself yet. _

 

No, he wasn’t. It took Bucky a week to even remember his own name, and it was months of grueling research while on the run before he could really consider himself his own person.

 

_ So when I woke up and you were nowhere to be found, I wasn’t surprised. Now that I knew you were alive, though, I wasn’t going to rest until I found you. No matter the cost, I was going to get you back. Get you safe. _

 

_ At first, the search was a little manic. Natasha found me every bit of information she could find about the Winter Soldier, and Sam and I followed every tiny lead that gave us for months. And I do mean every lead. If there was even the tiniest chance that you were there, I made sure I was too. As the months wore on, though, there was less and less to go on, and I eventually mellowed out a bit. I was still hunting for you every chance I got, but I spent time with the Avengers as well, going on missions with them, dealing with the whole Ultron mess. Leads on you were few and far between, and though I still followed every one, they all ended up dead ends. _

_ Until the accords. _

 

[Track 18- The Run And Go- Twenty One Pilots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1qFTEXPiqQ&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw&index=18)

_ When you were a suspected international terrorist, suddenly you became very easy to find. I got the intel from Sharon within an hour of the bombing, and then went directly to Romania. _

 

Bucky had a sneaking suspicion that it would have been that easy to find him all along if anyone other than Steve had been looking. It was an unsettling thought.

 

_ For the record, I never thought that you were the one who bombed the UN. I knew that if HYDRA had recaptured you, we would have heard about it already, and there was no other explanation for you doing something like that. _

_ I still had to try and prove that though, which as you know, went FUBAR pretty fast. Before I could blink, all hell had broken loose. We learned all it took for you to revert to winter soldier mode was some code words, there was yet again someone trying to destroy the Avengers, and I couldn’t get over myself long enough to actually talk things out instead of fighting half my team. _

 

Steve’s pride had always gotten in the way. Bucky had tried to warn him about it when they were young, but the stakes had never been high enough for it to be a serious problem, so he stopped bothering after a while.

 

_ I regret a lot of how I handled that whole situation, especially what went down with Tony, but one thing I don’t regret is standing by your side through it all. If I had to do it over again, I would still choose you. I would choose you every time. _

_ Giving up the shield to go on the run with you wasn’t much of a sacrifice, honestly. The choice was between the symbol I hated being and the man I loved, which wasn’t a choice at all. _

 

Bucky had to reread the last sentence a couple of times before he realized what had made him pause.  Steve referred to him as the man he loved. He actually wrote it down and didn’t cross it out. Bucky was just confused now, but he pressed on.

 

 


	3. PART III

**PART III**

[Track 19- Hallelujah- Pentatonix](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRP8d7hhpoQ&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw&index=19)

_ I just realized I actually wrote that I love you in the last paragraph. I’ve been avoiding it through this whole thing, but I just can’t anymore. I’ve tried to deny that I loved you for years, ever since I woke up without you, because I thought if I could convince myself you weren’t the love of my life and just my best friend like everyone thought, missing you wouldn’t hurt so bad.  _

_ It doesn’t work like that, though. Missing you still hurt, and I couldn’t forget what it was like to love you and know that you loved me back.  _

_ When I got you back, I thought we might be okay for a while. The new life I had built was in shambles, but I had you, and that was all I ever wanted. Even if we had to be in hiding, I would have been okay with you by my side.  _

_ I understand why you wanted to go back in cryo. You couldn’t trust yourself, and you couldn’t trust anyone else not to take advantage of that. I understood your decision. Looking back on it, I think it was probably the best option you had.  _

_ That doesn’t mean I liked it.  _

_ It took me a long while to accept what you had decided to do. The whole time I was fighting for the Avengers and you to get pardoned, I was wishing you were there fighting by my side again.  _

_ I know how selfish that is. Believe me, I know.  _

_ I’m just going to be really glad to have you back so I can tell you I love you in person.  _

Steve hadn’t said “I love you” when he was here, though. Not once, at least not when Bucky could hear him. 

They were going to have words when Steve got back. 

 

[Track 20- Read All About It, Pt. III- Emeli Sandi and Nick Howard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFXRQKYFbXE&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw&index=20)

_ I will say, fighting without you but knowing you were safe was a lot easier than anything I had to do before. It was still hard, still an uphill battle to clear everyone’s names and then make amends with the team and the world, but I still felt like I had something to fight for for once. I wanted to make things right so that when you woke up you would have nothing but good to wake up to.  _

_ It was slow going, but we managed. Clearing the Avengers was easiest, and clearing your name, while difficult, was far from impossible, what with Tony standing up for you and everything. Redrafting the accords took some time, and jumping through hoops, but I tried not to let my ego get in the way, and we managed to do that, too.  _

_ Along the way, I somehow made up with Tony, and all the Avengers. That part was probably the hardest, but we worked it out. Things won’t ever be exactly the same as they used to be, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Something I learned from all of us being forced to actually talk about our feelings and share our stories with each other was that I wasn’t the only miserable one on the team, and somehow, that made it easier to connect with everyone. Realizing we were all screwed up made it easier to want to get better together, and we did.  _

_ In the past year or so, things have finally mellowed out. It’s kind of like having a family again.  _

_ Only thing that’s missing is you.  _

 

[Track 21- The War Was In Color- Carbon Leaf](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSnR8fJP-2M&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw&index=21)

_ This is the last song. It’s sort of the conclusion to the whole playlist, because I feel like it just sums up everything pretty nicely. I don’t really think I can give an explanation better than the one I had when I first created this, so here it is: _

_ In this century, my whole life is a footnote in a kid’s history book. To most of the world, I’m an exhibit in the Smithsonian, not a real person, and at some point I think I started treating myself like that, too. I figured if I had to be living history, then so be it. I’d try and live up to my own name. _

_ No matter what I did, though, no matter how hard I tried to pretend differently, my feelings weren’t faded like the pictures of me and the Howlies. The war was a recent memory for me, still in bright technicolor, and I couldn’t change that. _

_ I had to learn to accept that I wasn’t ever going to be like everyone else in this century. I had to learn to be okay with being the old man in the body of a thirty year old, and I had to learn to be okay with my life being a story people told to their kids.  _

_ And after that? I had to accept that things were never going to go back to the way they were. Nothing ever completely goes back to the way it was, and learning that was the most important part of all this. Things can’t ever go back to the way they were, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still good. The 21st century isn’t a bad place to be, and the people I have met are as much a family to me as the Howlies ever were.  _

_ Bucky, I think you’ll agree with me on that.  _

_ Oh, Sam just called. We’re leaving in an hour. I can’t wait to see you, Buck. I’ve missed you.  _

_ I hope this did what I intended. I hope you know where I’m coming from.  _

_ If not, I’ll find another way to make sure you understand, because I’m not giving up on you. _

_ Till the end of the line, always.  _

_ With love,  _

_ Steve.  _

 

Bucky thought he understood. Well, understood most of it, anyway. He still wanted to know what Steve’s deal was with the whole “love” thing, but he figured he could ask that when Steve got back. For now, though, he had an idea that he wanted to see through. 

 

 

**EPILOGUE**

[Renegades- The X-Ambassadors](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSJhrO2Ydao&list=PLiV0ZtZQdupQ2z4NhcVO29z90WOYhXLCw&index=22)

Steve stared down at the leather notebook in his hands, and his phone sitting on the table in front of him displaying the link he had just been sent. The notebook, which T’challa had handed him almost the moment he stepped off the plane in Wakanda, was the same one he had given Bucky before leaving for the Avengers mission three days ago. T’challa had informed him that Bucky wanted him to read the latest addition to it and listen to the accompanying song, and that Bucky didn’t want Steve to talk to him until after he had done so. 

Steve was a bit confused by this turn of events, but he was so desperate to see Bucky that he wasn’t going to question it. He had hidden himself in a quiet corner of the garden, and prepared himself to read whatever Bucky had written. 

First, he pressed play on the song, and then he flipped through the notebook full of his own handwriting to find Bucky’s messy scrawl on the page next to his own last entry. 

_ Dear Steve,  _

_ It’s been two days since you left on your mission. I finished reading your notebook/listening to your playlist thing last night. And before I say anything else, that’s some real heavy shit you’ve been carrying around. I want you to know that as much as you might blame yourself, I don’t blame you for anything that happened. You were just trying to do what was right.  _

_ Now. Onto my song.  _

_ I’m about as good at communicating as you are, these days, so I thought it would be a good idea to do the same thing you did and put everything in a notebook and a playlist to make it easier. I only found the one song though (my pop culture knowledge is not yet as vast as yours seems to be), so this is what you get. _

_ I picked this song because it has a very “us against the world” vibe to it. I know you made up with everybody, and I know I want to have the chance to get to know all your friends too, but I still want to be us.  _

_ We can’t go back to the way things were before, and I know we’re both changed so much in seventy years, but I want to keep moving forward with you. I’m with you till the end of the line, no matter what. I mean it.  _

_ A part of me feels like I ought to write more, but I want to say everything else to your face. _

_ I’ll see you when you get back. _

_ With love,  _

_ Bucky.  _

 

Steve closed the notebook, let the song finish, and then went in search of Bucky. He eventually found him standing in front of a large picture window that overlooked the gardens. Bucky didn’t turn around as Steve approached, but Steve could tell that Bucky was aware of his presence. They stood next to each other in silence for a few moments, watching the world go by, before Bucky spoke up. 

“Why didn’t you say it to my face?” Steve turned to look at him, but Bucky continued to stare out the window. 

“What?”

“In your notebook. You wrote that you wanted to tell me you loved me to my face as soon as you got here, but you didn’t.” Steve stared at him. 

“I- I wasn’t sure if you remembered that part of us. I didn’t want to push.” Bucky turned to look at him finally, eyes shiny.

“I thought you had moved on.” Steve shook his head. 

“Never. I could never.”

“Then-” Steve cut him off with a kiss. It wasn’t a particularly good kiss, by normal standards, but because this was the first time he was kissing Bucky since the 40s, it felt like the most amazing thing he had ever done. When they pulled apart, Bucky was staring at him in shock, but his hand was still gripping Steve’s t-shirt like a lifeline. 

“I love you, Bucky. I never stopped. God, I’ve loved you since before I knew what that meant, and I’ll love you until the day I die. I-” Now it was Steve’s turn to get cut off with a kiss, and this one was even better than the last. When they finally pulled up for air, they stayed in an embrace, gazing into each other's eyes.

“I love you too, Steve.” Steve hugged him close, and Bucky rested his chin on Steve’s shoulder. 

“I’m glad you’re back.” 

“Yeah,” Bucky sighed in content. “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cried approximately twelve times while writing this. Only two of those times were related to the actual content of the story.  
> Trying to write a fic like this during the last couple months of school may not have been my brightest idea, but I sure as hell don't regret it. It was a lot of fun.  
> I hope you enjoyed it.  
> XX  
> Hannah
> 
> (P.S.- come yell at me on tumblr- http://it-is-the-hannah.tumblr.com/)


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